Mamastop
You may have heard that Kirstie Alley went on Oprah in a bikini to show off her slimmer body. She said:
"I think women -- I don't think we ever feel like we're good enough. We don't feel like we're thin enough or pretty enough or smart enough or work hard enough. And we are good enough… The bikini thing is neither here nor there, other than the fact, you know, I am 55 years old. So I thought -- come on, we are all good enough. And we look good enough. And we are not our bodies.”
Go Kirstie, right? Well, I got an anonymous e-mail from a reader pointing me to this entry from a pair of allegedly famous bloggers named Amalah and Sweetney. Their message:
“Listen, I want to be supportive of other, ehh, big boned ladies like myself being all proud of their bodies and shit, but heyzeus christmas people, I feel like the image of that woman’s monster-sized thighs may be appearing in my nightmares for a long, long time to come.”
The e-mail I got said:
“I don't want to start any kind of flamewar, but I do I feel disappointed that the post seems to be inviting their primarily (I'm assuming) female readers to bash another woman for daring to show thighs that don't pass societal muster… Maybe I am misinterpreting the post, but I am disappointed enough to stop reading them both, let alone their joint venture of mamapop.”
I personally think that if that entry is any indication, the allegedly famous Mamapop bloggers are not very good or funny or thoughtful writers. I love what Kirstie said, and that Mamapop entry just proves her point. Why are women always the ones cutting each other down, anyway?
"I think women -- I don't think we ever feel like we're good enough. We don't feel like we're thin enough or pretty enough or smart enough or work hard enough. And we are good enough… The bikini thing is neither here nor there, other than the fact, you know, I am 55 years old. So I thought -- come on, we are all good enough. And we look good enough. And we are not our bodies.”
Go Kirstie, right? Well, I got an anonymous e-mail from a reader pointing me to this entry from a pair of allegedly famous bloggers named Amalah and Sweetney. Their message:
“Listen, I want to be supportive of other, ehh, big boned ladies like myself being all proud of their bodies and shit, but heyzeus christmas people, I feel like the image of that woman’s monster-sized thighs may be appearing in my nightmares for a long, long time to come.”
The e-mail I got said:
“I don't want to start any kind of flamewar, but I do I feel disappointed that the post seems to be inviting their primarily (I'm assuming) female readers to bash another woman for daring to show thighs that don't pass societal muster… Maybe I am misinterpreting the post, but I am disappointed enough to stop reading them both, let alone their joint venture of mamapop.”
I personally think that if that entry is any indication, the allegedly famous Mamapop bloggers are not very good or funny or thoughtful writers. I love what Kirstie said, and that Mamapop entry just proves her point. Why are women always the ones cutting each other down, anyway?
posted by mo pie at 12:54 PM
34 Comments:
What spin? I cut and pasted that quote directly from your site. I fail to see where the spin comes in.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Well hopefully she'll come and speak for herself. She's one of your regular readers and that's how she took it. I quoted you, I quoted her, I quoted Kirstie. My readers are smart enough to draw their own conclusions.
Asking people to weigh in on an opinion that Kirstie Alley's thighs are too fat for a bikini seems like an invitation for people to criticize her body. She can backpedal all she wants, but the post speaks for itself, regardless of what was intended.
I'm not a regular reader of Mamapop (or even a reader at all... I followed the link at BFD), but I did post a comment on the site, which has since been deleted. Essentially, I said this:
Hate Kirstie Alley for making annoying commercials? Sure. Dislike her for being a Scientologist? Whatever. But should she have the audacity to be proud of her less than perfect body on the Oprah Show? Then she deserves jokes about causing blindness or junior high-worthy comments about needing to scrub out one's brain. She's a 55-year-old woman and she looks fantastic! Immature mean girl mentality like that only serves to speak volumes about their own insecurities.
Tracey, if you saved it, feel free to post the original, because I'm sure that I've missed the inflammatory essence or word-twisting nature of the comment that necessitated censorship.
Kristie Alley may not be a sylph, but her thighs are neither monstrous nor nightmarish. To say they are, as Sweetney did, qualifies as bashing.
What fucking kills me is the context of Sweetney's asshole post.
The point of Kirstie Alley going on Oprah in a bikini was to show that she does not have a perfect body and that should be okay, and Sweetney's response is ew, monster thighs? That is hilarious. Also, fuck you.
Wow! I think she looks fabulous. I didn't look half that good in a bikini when I was 19.
Although I love what Kirstie Alley said, I think this is actually kind of depressing. I don't want anyone to expect me even to get into a bikini at 55, let alone look good in it.
I remember Jamie Lee Curtis doing something like this a few years back, and somehow, it didn't bother me the same way. She really did let it all hang out - no makeup, no airbrushing, no posing. She looked gorgeous, but she looked like a woman in her 50s, which was RAD. There's also something kind of bad-ass about JLC's refusal to soft-pedal the whole Hollywood sex-selling requirement for actresses, or pretend it's in any way empowering to get up in front of a bunch of strangers in your underwear.
On the one hand, I think Alley was brave, on the other, the whole thing kind of annoys me, and it seems like it would have been more useful, in terms of making women whose bodies aren't perfect feel better, if it had been done another way, or by somebody else. She wasn't letting it all hang out as a 55-year-old - it looks like she did quite a bit of work to look as young and thin as possible including, probably, expensive surgery.
I've always felt conflicted about Alley - I love how out there she can be about her body, but there always seems to be a little betrayal in it with her - she's about 6 feet tall, and at her her heaviest was calling herself something like 220 lbs, which can't have been right. She declared herself a proud fat girl, then went and schilled for Jenny Craig, which is nothing but hopeless crack for dieters. I don't blame her, but I think she needs to decide which she's going to do: lay it all out there for the good of the cause, or try as hard as she can to be acceptable by the current draconian youth/beauty standards.
Not that I blame her, for even after all that work and money spent, look what she gets (even from her fellow fat girls). I wouldn't want to face the scrutiny she's endured for the past 20 years for even 15 minutes.
Still, though - fish or cut bait, man.
Too bad Sweetney/Tracey removed her comments here and closed down comments on mamapop. I am the person who e-mailed Mo Pie about the entry on mamapop. I am a regular reader of both this site, as well as Amalah and Sweetney. I'd only been to mamapop 2-3 times because it is fairly new. In a comment she removed, Tracey had said that she knew her audience. Well, I was her audience, and the question she asked pissed me off. I didn't want to vote in the "thighs too big to be exposed?" referendum. I wanted to talk about what it meant that that question was even asked. So, I came here. I am not a watchdog trolling the internet for slights against "bigger boned gals." This was the first time I e-mailed Mo Pie.
I am a working mom. I have a sense of humor. One of my favorite sites is GoFugYourself. Those women are funny and all about making the most of what you have. The mamapop post, on the other hand, angered me, because it's women like that who make it hard for women like me to feel comfortable taking my kids to the pool. I do it anyway, but I know there are people who think my thighs should not see the light of day, and my kids will just have to wait until they are old enough to go in the pool alone. I am currently a size 18, but have lost 20 lbs of post partum weight in the last 3 months. Nonetheless, by Tracey's standards, I will probably never be bikini-ready (which is a heinous term in addition to being nonsensical in context, since it was KA's thighs that were the offensive body part.) Given what she's been through lately, I hate to bring it up, but why would the mother of a daughter put this kind of message out there?
I was hoping she'd admit that it was a petty and stupid thing to put up for a vote. Instead, she's backpedalling, and apparently censoring comments that question the question. The post alienated me, a long term reader, who felt like I saw a side of Tracey/Sweetney that I didn't like at all. I won't be reading her anymore, which is the best way for these things to resolve--a win/win. And damn her for making me defend Kirstie Alley.
Sweetney comment #1
umm no, that's not what i said, nor was this an invitation to bash women of my size. i presented my opinion, which was only that as a woman of that size i do not feel i am or she is "bikini ready". unlike you, i know my audience and that fat bashing is NOT in our lexicon. i deeply resent being portrayed in this fashion. nice spin.
Mo response:
What spin? I cut and pasted that quote directly from your site. I fail to see where the spin comes in.
Sweetney #2:
the spin of the quote from your "source": "the post seems to be inviting their primarily (I'm assuming) female readers to bash another woman for daring to show thighs that don't pass societal muster…" WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. and bullshit. AND WRONG.
Mo response:
Well hopefully she'll come and speak for herself. She's one of your regular readers and that's how she took it. I quoted you, I quoted her, I quoted Kirstie. My readers are smart enough to draw their own conclusions.
Interesting that Sweetney says
fat bashing is not in her lexicon, yet at the same time feels free to pass judgement on Kirstie Alley's bikini-readyness. Being bikini ready is much more a state of mind then a physical appearance. A size two woman who was not comfortable with herself wouldn't look nearly as good as someone with the confidence of Kirstie. I can't remember the last time I wore a bathing suit of any kind, much less a bikini, but that doesn't mean that I can't be proud of someone else who will!
Wow! I think she looks fabulous. I didn't look half that good in a bikini when I was 19.
If it makes you feel any better Mary, I've never worn any kind of two-piece in my life. At all. Ever.
I think that Sweetney is completely naive if she can't see that referring to another woman's "monster-sized thighs" necessarily involves fat-bashing. She seems to think that because she has the same "monster-sized" body herself, she is free to hate both her body and Kirstie Alley's. Fine! Just call it what it is, then -- self-loathing. And don't blame KA for not hating her body the way that you hate yours.
(To be fair, I don't think Amalah had anything to do with the writing of that post.)
Mary Garden said:
"I don't blame her, but I think she needs to decide which she's going to do: lay it all out there for the good of the cause, or try as hard as she can to be acceptable by the current draconian youth/beauty standards."
Does this ultimatimum apply to every woman overweight woman trying to balance self-acceptance of her weight against an honest desire to weight less for a myriad of reasons, including appearance and health, or is only Kirstie Alley required to pick one feeling and go with it for the rest of her life?
Or put another way, are we only allowed to fly the "I love me the way I am" flag if we give up on trying to improve ourselves? Is it not possible to like yourself and honestly admit that your weight isn't healthy and you'd feel even better about yourself if you lost weight?
I think Kirstie faces the same conflict a lot of women who don't see their perfect image of themselves in the mirror face. And I think Kirstie Alley has job pressure regarding her weight and looks that a lot of us don't face. My boss could care less whether I'm a size 10 or 20, the typing gets done just as fast. But Kirstie's job opportunities as an actress are narrower if she's overweight. I don't think she's a hypocrite for waving the dual flags of self-acceptance as a fat girl and losing weight and feeling better about herself. I think she's honest.
As the Sweetney "bikini ready" debate shows, it's not like she's even at a size that a lot of people, and Hollywood, deem normal. She's lost 70+ pounds and she looks fierce but people still call her overweight and discuss her monster thighs.
Love Kirstie, dislike Sweetney. (For a variety of reasons. Her inability to handle comments that are less than adoring, among them.)
What the hell are fat/used to be fat women not allowed to flaunt it? Why do they suddenly have to become sacrificial sheep for "the cause?"
I have giant thighs, and I'm sick of people who've never had to shop in the fat girl store telling ME that I shouldn't get so excited, they didn't "mean it" that way.
She's a beautiful woman who lost 75 freaking pounds and wants to shake her thing as her reward, because she's PROUD of what she's done. Would I do it? No, cause I'm a chicken shit.
But don't disregard the hard work she's put into herself because you think her thighs are fat.
What a revolting statement. Thank you for reinforcing why I do NOT read any of that tripe.
ugh. You know what? I'm not even one of the so called "women of size" unless you call "teeny" a size. And *I'm* deeply offended. Kirstie looked hot. And I wish I could have that much confidence in MY body.
Way to continue on Jr. High way beyond the bounds of normal, Tracey. Here's a thought: Just because they were the best years of your life does NOT mean everyone else wants to stay there with you. Grow up.
Jelly, here again, a.k.a. former Sweetney reader and reporter of mamapop to Mo Pie. I do think it bears repeating that Amalah and Sweetney: two different people. Nonetheless, I want to point out that on July 14, in her Club Mom blog, Amalah linked to a website called shape of a mother, which features photos of women's bodies post partum. The goal of the site is to acknowledge and accept the new bodies many women find themselves in after having a baby. I don't think Sweetney ever mentioned it, but she should realize that people who find blogs like shape of a mother inspiring are her audience. Maybe she is the bad cop and Amalah is the good cop when it comes to self-loave, but I think Sweetney looks hypocritical and also incredibly unaware of who her audience really is. Also, she appears to be not clever enough to pull off a pop culture blog. I think they wanted to present a blog along the lines of Television Without Pity or Project Rungay. They have a long way to go, if they best they can come up with is: OMG! Look at Kirstie Alley's thighs! Their tone in the past has indicated that they might view the internet as one big high school cafeteria, but I had previously given them the benefit of the doubt that they were not that intellectually stunted. I can't do that anymore, in light of the Kirstie Alley post. And what's really disappointing is that Sweetney can't face the fact that any regular reader would dare to question her judgment. She turned into a bully, getting all caps lockey and exclamation pointy. Grow up and be a woman, Sweetney. (Sorry for the lack of links in this comment. I am not that tech savvy.)
thordora, what you said. I'm not a big fan of Kirstie Alley, but she looks great and there's no reason she shouldn't put herself out there.
Mary, the Oprah article said that Alley is 5'8" tall, so maybe the 220lb figure isn't that far off after all. And hell, when I weighed in around 210, my driver's license read 195. Disingenous, sure. But it's one of those little things we tell the world (and ourselves) sometimes just to get through the day.
I'd agree that shilling for Jenny Craig was icky, but more because it damages her credibility as an actor/comedian than that it betrays any cause.
As far as the Mamapop comments go, the writer was being an asshole and then wanted to pretend she wasn't. But at least now I won't waste any time reading her blog.
ok, I can't read the original post because it appears to have been shut down. But I read the Yahoo article and I can do math. The article states that Kirstie Alley is 5'8" tall and has lost 75 pounds after reaching an all time high of 220 pounds, which means that Kirstie Alley now weighs 145 pounds which means her BMI is 22. Which is well within the healthy range and I would bet she is wearing a size 8-10 (that is just a guess based on her height...my BMI is 22 and I wear a size 2, but I am much shorter).
Since Sweetney claims that she is only speaking as a woman of the same size as Kirstie Alley, she really should let us know how skinny (in terms of BMI and actual number size) one ought one be in order to be bikini ready? Is it any wonder that there are so many girls starving themselves and thinking that they aren't thin enough when you have other women talking smack about a celebrity having thunder thighs because she isn't underweight?
You are known by the company you keep.
Call it 'guilt by association' or 'lay down with dogs, wake up with fleas', I'm done with both those Nasty Nellies.
(ehhhh, ok, til the next trainwreck they initiate.)
Because I bet Sweetney is here reading comments, even though she's too thin-skinned to withstand the criticism she created on her own site, let me just say: Sweetney, you're an idiot. The whole violent acres thing made me think that there was something "not right" about you. Now, I am convinced that you are a full-blown IDIOT.
Re: innocence of Amalah. While I love gofugyourself, Amalah's www.snarkywood.com has never been funny. It's tried hard to be, but comes off as a stupid gofugyourself wannabe. It's the same kind of unfunny stupidness that was Sweetney's Kristie Alley post. The two are made for each other.
I am hurting so goddamn motherfucking much I can barely type these words, to quote a great oracle of the internet.
It's mean to make fun of other people's looks. That's the lesson I learned the other day when I read Sweetney and Amalah.
I'm glad to see that neither of them ever do that...Um. Wait.
Jan, I agree with you. (Well, I agree with all of you, but this point especially.)
The ViolentAcresGate really put me off these two twits. And now Sweetney is telling KIRSTIE ALLEY to put her thighs away?!? Like, sit the hell down, no one crowned you Queen of Anything. If Amalah's smart, she'll realize that this whole mamapoop thing isn't such a great idea after all.
I think Kirstie looked awesome and I think Sweetey is a hypocrite. She was appalled that someone would make fun of her child, but its okay to make fun of other peoples? Kirstie does have a mom and dad. Do as I say daughter not as I do.
Sweetney is buds with Dooce; this alone speaks volumes about the lunacy that lives in her head!
On Kirstie's former weight - there's no way she was 220 pounds at her heaviest. I was that weight at my heaviest and I'm 5" shorter than Ms Alley, and there's no way I was as fat as she used to be. There's a discussion on that very topic over at diet-blog.com where large people and formerly large people are crying BS on the 220 pounds thing.
It leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I think she looks great and deserves kudos for losing weight, but if she can't even be honest about her weight, it's insulting people's intelligence.
Bottom line is, Sweetney is a turd (and so is amalah). She always have been. For as much ridicule as she puts out on a day to day basis and especially as much as she claims to be "punk rawk" she's not punk rawk enough to admit defeat or even withstand any ridicule herself.
I've known sweetney to be a joke for a long time now 'bout time others are catching on.
Slickery,
I don't actually think every fat woman should have to be consistently "on message," or even every celebrity fat woman. The only reason I criticize Alley is that she keeps putting herself forward in a sort of "power to the people" way and then absent-mindedly undermining the people she says she wants to encourage.
If you deliberately put yourself forward as an example (which Alley DOES, in spite of her occasional tendency to add a disclaimer), I think you do have sort of a responsibility to stick to your guns - and if you feel equivocal, be HONEST about it - a la Fatty McBlog, rather than selling out for what pitiful scraps you can get from the beauty arbiters. If there were a lot of other fat women in the public eye, it wouldn't matter so much.
This bikini thing, for example, was promoted as a "power to the people - 55-year-old woman in a bikini!" thing, if I'm not wrong (maybe I'm wrong? I didn't see it). But it wasn't especially empowering, either for fat women or for women in their 50s, because Alley has spent a lot of money to make herself look way younger than 55 and way less droopy, post-weight-loss, than most of us do. And I highly doubt she was very open about that, preferring to let people think it was all mother nature (again, correct me if I am wrong). All she's done is reaffirm the status quo to the best of her ability, and even that wasn't enough - she was still torn to bits.
Also, thanks, Susan! I weighed 311 lbs and would peg Alley at more like 260-80 at her heaviest. She's not a bird-boned woman, and she is four inches taller than me. Again, moot point if she were just marketing herself as a Hollywood star - we all do what we can to get by in a fat-hating world - in that case, I would just say "yeah, whatever" and "go, Kirstie, go!" But if you're going to do that, it's unseemly to pretend you're championing the fat girl.
Anyway, just my two cents, again. And also, Susan, I never went out in public in a bikini either! You couldn't pay me enough. In fact, I think I would rather go naked.
Susan - I think it's hard to guess at peoples' size and weight by photos, video footage, etc. I remember seeing a post on the onefatbitchypoo blog where she commented about buying a 38C bra -- and in the photos it seemed clear to me that she was larger than I was at the time, and I was wearing a 42C. And the woman mo pie linked to awhile ago, who was 5"6" and 160 pounds, wearing a size 10. I'm 5'6" and now weigh 155, and I wear a size 12 or 14 in most jeans.
I'm not saying that either of them are lying -- people have different builds, distribute their weight differently, and blah de blah. (And I dislike snug clothing.)
And beyond the issue of simple accounting, does it really matter what Alley weighed before? I mean, I hear you on the "leaving a bad taste in the mouth thing," since she's telling women to accept themselves when clearly she didn't. Maybe she should be more upfront now than she was before. On the other hand, whether or not I accept myself has little to do with whether she weighed 220, or 270, or 320 before she lost the weight. And I can see where, once she put a number out there, it's kind of hard to back up and say... oh, yeah, I was lying. People would jump down her throat either way.
Again, I've never been a fan of Alley, and haven't really followed any of her recent work, whether on TV, commercials, Oprah, whatever. I found her to be kind of irritating as an actress, and really irritating when she was the face of Pier One. So maybe I just don't really care what she weighed before.
I think she very well could have been 220.
Some people hold their weight better than others, and some don't. I thought her and I looked about the same at 220, and I'm only 4'10". My aunt, on the other hand, is 6" taller than me and looks as fat at 200 as I do at 240.
It's possible, it just means she was pretty low in the muscle department.
Well, Mo, remember when you said that you really wanted to get more comments for your blog entries?
Looks like you're on your way.
I'll admit I haven't stayed up-to-date on the whole KA weight-loss thing (mostly for the reasons weetablog has stated in her first couple of sentences.) But, if I'm reading the background stuff right, she made a committment that she would be on Oprah, by a certain date, in a bikini. In spite of the fact that by many people's perception she's not SI $wimsuit Issue, bikini tiny, she had the stones to get out there and do it anyway! I have to admire that. (Also the very flatness of her stomach. I didn't even notice her thighs. I was too riveted by the lack of belly flab.)
Also, I guess Sweetney (maybe should be "Bitterney"?) didn't really care for the jury pool she attracted.
Please, people. She went on Oprah to show the world you don't have to be perfect looking, that your weight doesn't define you, etc., and then she obviously LIES about her current weight? 145 lbs and 5'8"? C'mon, now - we all know that's a huge fib. To me, it absolutely undercuts everything else she was purportedly trying to do. If she cared about helping us all feel good about ourselves, she would have said, "Hey world! Look at me! I'm 55, I look great, and I weigh 175! This is what 175 looks like, and it looks pretty good!" (Or 170, whatever she actually weighs.) Now THAT would've been inspirational. I think most of the backlash I've heard stems from Kirstie's obvious lie. We hear she's down to 145, we think "Gosh, I wish I weighed that. She's so tall, she must look amazing!" And then we see thighs that look like our own, and we get pissed! We wonder if we look worse than we thought, we wonder if we're deluding ourselves, and we lash out at her for lying and making us feel bad. It's not about women judging each other's looks too harshly. It's about women holding liars accountable. Seems fair to me.
Post a Comment
<< Home